Negative Keywords with Keyword Matching Examples

When running SEM campaigns, you can prevent your ads from showing for a certain query by applying negative keywords to them. For example, the negative keyword 'free' tells Google not to display your ad for any search containing the term 'free' e.g., ‘free driving lessons’. Another bye-bye keyword you should negative is ‘youtube’, to prevent your ads from showing when the searcher is looking to learn via free YouTube videos. If you want to keep your campaign tight, 'how to' should be made a negative keyword because 'how to' keyword phrases have low buying intent. 

You can define the negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level depending on your objective. If the negative keyword is applicable throughout the whole campaign (e.g., ‘free’),  you can add it at the campaign level, otherwise, you may want to consider Ad Group level. A recommended way to grow your negative keyword list is to examine the Search Terms Report regularly for irrelevant searches. 

By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help you reach the more appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), improve click-through rate (CTR), and increase your profits. 

 

Take note that (unlike their positive counterparts), you need to be awfully specific and remember to add synonyms, singular or plural versions, misspellings, and other close variations of your negative keywords if you want to exclude them.

 

Keyword Matching Example | Negative Broad Match

Negative broad match keyword: tennis lessons

Search	Could an ad show?
physical education lessons	Yes
tennis lesson	Yes
kids tennis lessons	No
lessons tennis	No
tennis lessons	No

 

For negative broad match keywords:

• Default type for your negative keywords.
• Your ad won't show if the search contains all your negative keyword terms, even if the terms are in a different order.
• Your ad may still show if the search contains only some of your keyword terms.

 

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Keyword Matching Example | Negative Phrase Match

Negative phrase match keyword: "tennis lessons"  

Search	Could an ad show?
physical education lessons	Yes
tennis lesson	Yes
kids tennis lessons	No
lessons tennis	Yes
tennis lessons	No

 

For negative phrase match keywords: 

 

• Your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms in the same order.
• The search may include additional words, but the ad won't show as long as all the keyword terms are included in the search in the SAME ORDER.
• The search may also include additional characters to a word and the ad will show even when the rest of the keyword terms are included in the search in the same order.

 

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Keyword Matching Example | Negative Exact Match

Negative exact match keyword: [tennis lessons]  

Search	Could an ad show?
physical education lessons	Yes
tennis lesson	Yes
kids tennis lessons	Yes
lessons tennis	Yes
tennis lessons	No

 

For negative exact match keywords:

• Your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms, in the same order, without extra words.
• Your ad may still show if the search contains the keyword terms with additional words.

 

Important Takeaways 

 

In conclusion, every Campaign should have a long list of negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic, prevent unwanted impressions and clicks as well as help improve click-through rates (CTR) and Quality Score. The longer the list, the more valuable it becomes, and the next best competitor is willing to pay good money to engage you for their campaigns because this long list, which is the result of years of data and huge ad spend, can be made readily available to them to help save them a lot of money up front, and improve CTR almost immediately.